50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

amkelley,

My father-in-law grew up in rural North Carolina. He frequently went to town, a considerably distance, using Scout Pace. That is, 16 paces walking, and 16 paces jogging. Both old guy II and I have mixed walking interspersed with bouts of running.

Igy

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

amkelley,

My father-in-law grew up in rural North Carolina. He frequently went to town, a considerably distance, using Scout Pace. That is, 16 paces walking, and 16 paces jogging. Both old guy II and I have mixed walking interspersed with bouts of running.

Igy

Gallowalking!

54 Years old, running since July 2020. Started off a decade of hard living, so I started slow... I've been through fits and starts, mostly overdoing it when I felt strong and getting hurt. I'm now up to 45mpw again after slowly building back up. Running on trails almost entirely and taking it slow. Also doing a lot of uphill running which seems to save my knees (like 8 miles, 2,000 feet uphill), then walk home.

I'm weak and not very good at this, but it seems to be giving me a reason to stay sane. That's a good thing.

Current PR's are 6:47 mile, 23.11 5k, and 1:57 HM. Not races, just me giving it a bit extra when I'm out on a run.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

amkelley,

My father-in-law grew up in rural North Carolina. He frequently went to town, a considerably distance, using Scout Pace. That is, 16 paces walking, and 16 paces jogging. Both old guy II and I have mixed walking interspersed with bouts of running.

Igy

amkelley, fast walking for a time volume similar to your running training will keep you surprisingly close to good running fitness. It's base training with much less stress on joints and connective tissue, but almost as good cardiovascular load. It only takes a little quality work on top of the walking to run well.

*Week 511 & 512*

Hello 50+ers! Yes, I'm alive and OK. As I indicated in my last post, I'm just dealing with a lot of other stuff and my mind is just not there right now. So I'm posting 2 weeks of not much. Lots of turmoil at the Community College right now. Buildings and personnel in an increased state of flux. In more personal news, glad my wife has gotten her first dose; I should get my second dose end of this week. Our only remaining functional car went on the fritz the day after getting our stimulus checks, so guess where that money is going. The yard is still a mess, but made come progress on dealing with some of the remaining branches that came down from the ice storm. I did finally get a decent walk in yesterday and it reminded me how much I need to get out more.

That's about it. Be safe, the end of this covid nightmare is near if we don't blow it. Talk soon.

All the Best!

old guy II wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

amkelley,

My father-in-law grew up in rural North Carolina. He frequently went to town, a considerably distance, using Scout Pace. That is, 16 paces walking, and 16 paces jogging. Both old guy II and I have mixed walking interspersed with bouts of running.

Igy

amkelley, fast walking for a time volume similar to your running training will keep you surprisingly close to good running fitness. It's base training with much less stress on joints and connective tissue, but almost as good cardiovascular load. It only takes a little quality work on top of the walking to run well.

Walking just doesn't seem like any sort of cardiovascular workout. I'm walking for 1.5 hours or more about as fast as I can walk. Walking faster than 4 mph feels very stiff and awkward and it tires out my legs in ways that running doesn't, but it doesn't make me breathe hard. I have never trained with a heart rate monitor and I don't know how much walking elevates my HR, but it can't be much compared with running. When I can't run I feel I need to ride a bike or a trainer in order to elevate my HR.

I suppose walking up steep hills might do the trick but I live in a very flat area and I have to drive 30 min. or more to get to any real hills. My regular walking routes go up the one significant hill in town, which happens to be a mile from my home. It's decently steep but short, and not really very useful.

M61, 5'11", 189 lbs

Week three of latest "restart."

MARCH 14-20, 2021

Sun -- Off

Mon - Off

Tues - Off

Wed - 17 mins bike trainer

Thur - 4.0 miles (10:18, 10:01, 10:02, 10:00)

Frid -- 21 mins bike trainer

Sat --- 4.0 miles (10:18, 9:36, 8:42, 7:35)

TOTAL: 8.0 MILES

Slow start to the week, but happy I got it going again. Have a great week, all.

Runners Whirled wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

amkelley,

My father-in-law grew up in rural North Carolina. He frequently went to town, a considerably distance, using Scout Pace. That is, 16 paces walking, and 16 paces jogging. Both old guy II and I have mixed walking interspersed with bouts of running.

Igy

Gallowalking!

Yes. Funnily enough, trained with Jeff a few times in 1975. At that time never considered slowing down for anything.

Good to see you racing RT but I think you have a lot of improvement left on that run. Definately think you will get 23.?? with another race or two under the belt.

'mopac wrote:

Good to see you racing RT but I think you have a lot of improvement left on that run. Definitely think you will get 23.?? with another race or two under the belt.

Thanks mopac. I’m confident I’ll keep improving, but the improvement curve will level off. The Tue and Sat runs are complementary of each other and directly contributed to that sharp improvement. Charlie, my LSD experiment stopped in November and severely negatively affected my form. I agree 100% that simply doing more miles, no matter how you do it, is almost always better, but I think people forget the one caveat to that maxim: “IF YOU CAN DO IT”. Nobody writes stories about the thousands 70 year old’s that “tried” to be like Ed Whitlock, and now have a variety of plastic replacement parts holding them together.

Amy: Don't dismiss the value of walking. I've done a lot of walking the past few years. Nothing crazy but 2-4 miles most days at a good clip. I'm sure that contributed to keeping somewhat fit during my down time. And it beats doing nothing.

Up and down week here. Felt pretty good some days; felt crappy on others. I'll attribute that to getting in more miles and a bit faster paces. The rides seem to really kill my legs for the next day too. Fell a bit short of my 35 mile goal. Just didn't have another mile in me on my Saturday run. But that's ok... 34 miles running; 44 miles biking.

M: 6.08 Miles in 50:28 [8:18 per mile]

T: 8.12 Miles in 1:05:54 [8:06 per mile]

W: 23.08 Mile ride in 1:31:35 [15.2mph]

T: 5.1 Miles in 44:03 [8:38 per mile]

F: 6.03 Miles in 48:14 [7:59 per mile]

S: 8.72 Miles in 1:13:31 [8:25 per mile]

S: 21.35 Mile ride in 1:21:15 [15.8mph]

Shooting for 37 miles this week. Things seem to be pretty good with the achilles. Never any pain while running but their is still occasional soreness after times of inactivity and the day after runs. Thinking about starting up some easy strides. It's going to be ugly.

Have a good run,

Dave

old guy II wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

amkelley,

My father-in-law grew up in rural North Carolina. He frequently went to town, a considerably distance, using Scout Pace. That is, 16 paces walking, and 16 paces jogging. Both old guy II and I have mixed walking interspersed with bouts of running.

Igy

amkelley, fast walking for a time volume similar to your running training will keep you surprisingly close to good running fitness. It's base training with much less stress on joints and connective tissue, but almost as good cardiovascular load. It only takes a little quality work on top of the walking to run well.

Almost as good cardiovascular load? I find that hard to believe. Is there any science to support this?

Like amkelley, I find walking to be significantly inferior to running as a fitness enhancer. I do not dismiss it entirely since doing something is better than nothing. It is weight bearing exercise which is good for our old bones. But I feel that the cardiovascular benefits pale in comparison to running and at my age that matters a lot.

I believe the point, at least my comment, was to transition back to running, not as a substitute.

Like Rtype said and we all agree on

There is not a training method that works for everyone.

Gotta weigh in on the walking and slogging with an old man story

Way back in dikity dikity do(1996) I ran my masters 5k "PR" of 14:35 5k at the Dragon Run in Post Falls Idaho.

My buildup was daily fasted 6 hour walks at a relaxed effort. Did these everyday for 4 or 5 months with zero running. I did do a little bike riding but not enough to recall.

Prior to the buildup I had been running pretty well for 2 years. Switched to walking because I sustained my first running injury and I had retired(whole nother story) before hitting the big 40.

Quick transition back to running maybe 6 weeks with some tempo/lt runs.

This was in Austin Tx. Sept I went to see my brother in Idaho and to escape the Tx heat. On an easy run one crispy morning I checked my pace...6minute miles was easy! Love that feeling of surprised boarder line astonished excitement when the watch smiles on ya.

Dragon Run

I went out with the leaders it felt easy but I did not know the course so I just followed them. I swear the whole race felt like a refreshing tempo run. Down to one dude who was huffing and puffing pretty hard with the finish easy to figure out off I went just gapped the guy like he was standing still with probably a bit less than a mile to go.

So this I thought was my big break thru. Back to Austin for some serious training....

Lots of std training just got slower and slower but I did win the masters Thunder Cloud Turkey Trot beating Austin's top master at the time but it was like 27 high for 8k. I was not happy. What happened? Well the Dragon Run 5k was short of course how short probably a minute and change but still I had went backwards. Of course in the back of my head was this idea all that walking is what gave me the endurance I so badly lack. Those super long walks super charged my fast twitch fibers. I have natural speed but lack endurance and endurance comes from aerobic metabolism which occurs when walking , working the fibers until they fatigue so the faster fibers are recruited aerobically stimulating the growth of mitochondria in those faster fibers.

So there is the Irony , fast twitch runners need to train super slow even walk. Slow twitch runners ironically enough need to go either longer or slower because they have way more fibers that have lots of mitochondria and therefore are so much harder to fatigue.

So walking like most forms of cross training will yield different results but I gotta say long slow relaxed walks felt really really good. Health wise if I has to chose one and only one form of exercise it would be walking;)

nice going! If you started running 8 months ago and are doing 8-mile uphill runs and 45-mile weeks, I'd say you are good at it. keep it up, and I hope you stay healthy,

Dave

On walking I think it's necessary for maintaining at least some fitness and muscle/joint strength while injured and recovering. Walking say 3-4 miles a day may not be sufficient to running close to your best 5K or half marathon, but it keeps you going and the return will be that much easier if you have some sort of walking base.

As far as an aerobic workout, try power walking up hills. Works best at 10% grade or more, so kind of steep (uncomfortable for running). Walk with a good cadence and stride and it's a good quad-builder and you can get your heart rate up to that 110-130 range. Even if you can only find a 100 or 200 meter stretch of this, just walk up briskly, down easy for 30-60 minutes and you will have a decent workout. Better are long hills of course, or mountain hikes.

First race in two years coming up on Saturday. A 5 miler. I plan on running 8 races this summer. 2019 was a cancer year, 2020 was a training year now I’m going to try to make it to some races again and I volunteered for clean up duties at four races so far.

So, probably won’t get another 2000 mile year this year....

M: off.

T-W: 10.7km.

R: 14.2km. (10:07-9:42-9:32-9:23-9:12-9:05-8:55-8:36)

F-SA: 11.2km.

SU: 23.1km. (10:37-10:27-10:18-10:07-9:58-9:47-9:38-9:26-9:16-9:14-9:11-9:14-8:58)

The park I usually run in was closed on Friday and Saturday, so I went to a local junior high to run on their track. Feeling that running on a track was a bit easier, I went a bit longer. In hindsight, that was a mistake. I didn't have enough left at the end of my Sunday's long run. Still this was the longest "long" run since Feb. 16 of last year, and the total volume was the highest since the same week. So I will take it in spite of the poor finish.

Once again a massive shout out to coaches, teachers, anyone of y'all who works on their feet all-day.

My "Coaches Joy" continues helping Rome High Schoolers PR every weekend. Two of our track stars broke 800 barriers at our State Meet facility Saturday = Jr Girl 2:27pt; Sr Boy 1:59pt. COLD! WINDY!! conditions too. 12 hours on my feet... who says I'm retired?

Sunday was a good 1500m debut for me in a low-key AAU Georgia Meet with no comp, no clock, no splits, and another windy day. Not making excuses 'cause us old folks are experienced enough to just run a steady hard 3.75 laps right? Right. 5:07.06 for this here M60 dude. I'll take it.

Community/Coaches Mile this coming Sat at our Relays Meet.

KP